"Duppel" Dubbel

Hello all,

This will be my first post on these message boards after extensive reading of all the different forums and links associated with what I thought I needed to know to start making my own recipe. I've finally worked something out. The name "Duppel" Dubbel is in reference to how I feel alot like I'm fumbling around with all these numbers and ingredients.

A little bit more background before I go onto the recipe: I have only one brew under my belt, and I have assisted in two others. My first brew was supervised by the guy who taught me how and used all of his equipment over this past summer. It was a porter based on a recipe found in Radical Brewing. That one turned out fantastically, all my friends really liked it and raved that they would drink this over all their commercial beers any day. Once school started back up, my dreams of having all my own mashing, sparging, boiling, fermenting, and bottling equipment had to be put on the back burner. I have a week off next week and am looking into getting a good setup going and making a brew wholly my own. I've had alot of procrastinating to do while I study for midterms and this is where most of it is spent. ANYWAYS, without further adieu, my recipe was based(LOOSELY) off of a recipe found here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/all-grain-assoiffe-chevre-belgian-dubbel-84352/

My recipe looks like this

Malts
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 72.73 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 9.09 %
0.50 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 4.55 %
0.50 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.55 %


Hops
1.00 oz Argentine Cascade 60 min
1.00 oz Argentine Cascade 15 min
1.00 oz Strisslespalt 5min

I'll be adding about 1lb of Honey at 5min as well, likely a nice light and fruity honey.

You can see how loosely it is based off of that recipe already. I chose all these ingredients from the prices on the website of the homebrew supply store across the border in Detroit that I'll be visiting.

Now my mashing schedule is where I've really felt like I'm fumbling around the most:

30 min @ 65 C
30 min @ 70 C
Sparge @ 76 C

Then I'll likely use either WLP 530 Trappist Yeast or WLP 550 Belgian Ale yeast

I would really really appreciate input on any part of this recipe, but especially on my mashing schedule and on my yeast selection.

THANKS!

Looks to be heavy on crystal malts, you might cut back on the C40. If you don't want to mess around with multiple mash temps on your first solo just shoot for single infusion at 65-66C and hold that for an hour. I don't have experience with either yeast, but I would use 530. 550 is more phenolic and if you don't have your fermentation temperature under control, phenols can ruin a beer.

Hey, thanks for the suggestions! Maybe a half pound of the Crystal 40L would be a better idea? I'm thinking maybe I'll go for a mash around 66-7C for a little sweetness, the honey should help balance the sweetness with more dryness and fermentables right? I would personally prefer something slightly sweeter as opposed to something too dry. Also what do you think of my hop schedule? Beersmith tells me this will lead to something like 36.2 IBU but I don't think that's right... I just used it to make a nice plan of my recipe and I put in american cascade hops which I don't think are similar to the argentine cascades if all my reading serves me properly. How bitter would this end up being(in some kind of comparison terms not IBU[not yet familiar with the taste equivalent of the IBU number])? should I up the hopping a bit?

Argentinian cascades are usually less bitter than US cascade so your numbers could be off. If you like sweeter beers, I would keep the IBU down around 25-30 for a beer of this strength. In my experience you can get a beer that tastes sweet, even if it finishes with a low final gravity (I don't think you will get too low), but not if you balance the sweetness with bitterness. I think your hop schedule is already pretty hoppy for a dubbel in terms of flavor and aroma, but it looks tasty. I would move some of the 15 minute addition to 60 minutes if the IBUs come in low when you use the real AA% from your hops.

so is this supposed to be a mix between a smaller version of a doppelbock and a belgian dubbel? whatever direction you're going, you'd be better off with an IBU in the low 20s.

svraines said:

Argentinian cascades are usually less bitter than US cascade so your numbers could be off. If you like sweeter beers, I would keep the IBU down around 25-30 for a beer of this strength. In my experience you can get a beer that tastes sweet, even if it finishes with a low final gravity (I don't think you will get too low), but not if you balance the sweetness with bitterness. I think your hop schedule is already pretty hoppy for a dubbel in terms of flavor and aroma, but it looks tasty. I would move some of the 15 minute addition to 60 minutes if the IBUs come in low when you use the real AA% from your hops.

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Yeah, I'll have to see what the numbers are on the package when I go over to buy all my supplies for this one. Thanks for the input! I'll be sure to post about my brew day when it happens, and how the beer turns out. Hopefully it'll go as smoothly as my first!

dcp27 said:

so is this supposed to be a mix between a smaller version of a doppelbock and a belgian dubbel? whatever direction you're going, you'd be better off with an IBU in the low 20s.

Click to expand...

I really can't say where I'm GOING with this, but the recipe is derived from messing around with the dubbel recipe I found... soo.... yes? 20s is around what a standard dubbel would fall then eh? thanks for your opinion!

Standard Dubbel:
OG 1.062-1.075
FG 1.018-1.01
ABV 6-7.5
IBU 15-25
SRM 10-14

Standard Dubbel:
OG 1.062-1.075
FG 1.018-1.01
ABV 6-7.5
IBU 15-25
SRM 10-14

Click to expand...

Ah, those numbers are very helpful!

I bought all the stuff for my mash-tun and am just putting the manifold into an old cooler right now. I'll probably be brewing with some buddies tomorrow. I have one question about the use of my honey. I have half a pound of darker manuka honey, and half a pound of a light acacia blossom honey (lucky me, the nice honeys were on sale today!). I want to keep the aromas from them as much as I can and I'm wondering how I should go about that... I'm thinking I would like to add them to my fermenter once fermentation starts to slow to a saunter and kick it up a bit again. How do I go about making sure nothing will infect my brew when I do this? I don't want to boil the honey for fear of ruining the nice flavours of them. I'm not looking for the flavour to REALLY stand out, just for it to add complexity to the profile of the beer.

I would simply add the honey just after you turn the flame off. This will pasteurize it if your concerned, and keep the majority of the floral aromas your looking for since it's not at boiling temps. Just a thought...

Thanks for all the tips guys. I'm just starting the boil! I've moved some of my hops schedule around for the actual recipe. Changes will be posted after the brew. My homemade mash tun did it's job wonderfully. Hopefully the day keeps moving along smoothly. Time to go sanitize!